If so, you're afloat atop history's rarest bubble, the American middle
class. Carried aloft for sixty years upon the
currents of strong dollars, cheap oil, roaring manufacture, tough
unions and vast empire, American consumerism became the model
for most of the world.

But this sparkling orb is being cracked by global competition, national
debt, deindustrialization, resource constraints, and military
blowback. Millions of homes are splattered with pay
cuts, debt, crime, foreclosure.

The global economy now produces more American losers than
winners Twenty percent fewer Americans are middle class today
than in 1971. Families in middle income neighborhoods have
retreated from 65% to 45% since 1970. In 2011
alone, 129,000 millionaires lost it all., Over 15% of us (not you) are
on Food Stamps.

The middle class, long the single measure of
success, respect and independence, cherished by liberals and
conservatives alike, will notwithstanding not roar back, will not
bounce back, will not climb or crawl back. The
pilot and co-pilot of economic recovery-- Wall Street and Washington--
have bailed out. Alan Greenspan admitted to
Congress (10/23/08) that "the critical functioning structures that
define how the world works" are "flawed." Theorems on blackboards
cannot solve current macroeconomic problems. They no longer
reliably employ, feed, fuel, house, heal or educate
us.

Increasingly, if you're still winning you occupy an oasis of
money, surrounded by talented, hard-working people who have lost homes,
savings or income, surrounded by fences, to keep the losers out.

Though we might prefer that good times continue exactly as before,
massive transformation stalks us all. As usual, the
future will be different. The next winners will be
those who soonest acknowledge that the middle class is
dissolving.

America's middle class made itself vulnerable by defining success as
possession of stuff rather than possession of power.
Specifically, workers indentured themselves to banks, for homes and
cars; unions drifted from heroic to greedy, focusing more on high pay
than workplace control; shoppers voted with their dollars for cheap
imports, sending jobs and capital abroad; voters accepted candidates
dedicated more to money than to constituents; schools failed to prepare
for swift change.

WHAT IS TO BE
RESTORED?
Certainly, when reaching a cliff, progress is not simply
forward. As serious unrest spreads, Middle America will be
replaced either by something horrible, or something better.

Horrible is easy to describe: look at any apocalyptic movie, where
there are not enough gates and guards to defend against famine,
contagion, revolution. Your children would pick tomatoes on plantations
or potatoes from garbage; they'd shoot then eat their neighbors.

By contrast, a secure future is less vivily
understood. If we learn from history's excesses,
solutions will be rooted in a proven practical American tradition that
is neither heartless capitalism nor bleeding heart socialism.
It might be called mutual enterprise. Constellations of regional
businesses profit for the sake of community, while member-owned
nonprofits. meet basic needs at least cost They thrive on
friendly creative competition within community solidarity.

As a prime example, "B Corporations" in several states now permit
directors to serve social and environmental benefit rather than maximum
profit only.

Today, rather than wait to be pushed aside, many are leaving the middle
class deliberately. They take center stage. They expect more
than a paycheck. Some of these folks were high
achievers. You've read their stories: after two PhDs, she
buys a farm and now sells goat cheese and birdhouses at the farmers'
market. These little revolts are but a symptom.

There are millions of related businesses and nonprofit organizations
that lead/exemplify the shift toward reliable abundance.
They're creating the jobs that make revolution orderly.

This article now becomes a suggestion box. Those who are
convinced that this bubble is a diamond may flip the page, or revisit
when useful. Prescriptions for vast change, especially
wholesome ones, are easily dismissed as utopian, even when presented as
balanced fiscal transitions and based on existing programs.

The good news is that deep environmental and infrastructure crises
require us to rebuild America, entirely. Every stick and
brick. To retrofit millions of houses so that they're
pleasantly heated and cooled by seasons rather than
fossils. To meet needs in walking
distances. To reduce waste to zero.

The better news is that rebuilding America's cities, suburbs, and farms
will fully employ the next ten generations of construction workers,
scientists and artists. Every skill can serve. We
will fill workshops, too, making modern tools that cut the costs of
housing and fuel. We'll thereby cut crime to a fraction,
since jobs fight crime. We'll empower the poor to prove their
capabilities, while generating unprecedented profit.

There's plenty work ahead, to make the poor wealthier and the wealthy
reliably secure.

The best news is that rebuilding America will create cities that are as
beautiful as the children within them. Our cities will be the
model for the world: earthquake-and-tornado-proof, flood-proof,
drought-proof, radiation-proof, famine-proof.

Transition plans unfurl gracefully within the dominant reality, by
installing and then connecting fragments. Simultaneous
reconfiguration of core infrastructures will take decades, requiring
trillions of dollars investment.

Such a bold national project will enable us to swim together rather
than sink together. Conservatives and
Liberals are invited to rise from ideological trenches to make life
easier for us all. We'll erase the national
debt. We'll restore national pride. RISE OF THE MUTUAL
CLASS
As a nation of cowboys, we're often reluctant to collaborate.
We've been taught to sink or swim alone. But, the
new routes toward independence will prepare what I call the mutual
class.

Especially key in the nonprofit sector, are member-owned mutual aid
systems. One hundred years ago, one third
of American households were members of "benevolent societies." They
pooled money and labor to meet needs. Paying pennies per
week, members built and owned genuinely nonprofit hospitals, orphanages
and old folks' homes. Hundreds of such "fraternal benefit"
groups-- funny-handshake buddies like the Shriners, Moose, Elks, Odd
Fellows-- were the original medical insurance companies.
Farmers organized electric co-ops that brightened rural
nights. They owned general stores, warehouses and granaries.

Together, these mutual aid associations became an essential precursor
to the middle class itself. By lowering the costs of living
Americans gave themselves raises. Resulting discretionary income freed
them to patronize neighborhood businesses, which incubated chain
stores. Working class families asserted individuality through
competitive consumption.

And now, adapted for our times and temperament, the mutuals are needed
again. We step from the treadmill of debt to take control of
life..

BIG NEEDS LITTLE
Healthy macroeconomies depend on the vitality of village and
neighborhood economies, just as healthy lungs depend on the vigor of
millions of tiny air sacs. That's because major
markets-- like cars, airplanes, bicycles and computers-- are invented
in garages rather than skyscapers. And because social chaos
and raging poverty are bad for most business.

As a result, the job base has been based increasingly on managing
tragedy, thus resists solutions. What would happen
to the job base were Americans to eat healthy food and exercise; to
drive safely or take transit? What would happen were we
content with what we owned? What if criminals went on strike
and refused to commit crimes?

Though some of these upstart markets may appear to compete with
dependence on Big Mart, long range benefits are
great Small undergirds Big like seeds prepare harvest.

Together, classes must now combine to reorganize
society. Through its precepts, the poor become
responsible and proud; the rich savor interesting lives connected to
community; the middle class create more than we consume.
Cleaner water and air lead to healthier public, and from
healthier public to healthier you. Likewise, with less crime,
more liberty. Wiith more wealth, less welfare.

member-owned banks that invest most money back to the neighborhoods
from where deposits came.LITTLE NEEDS BIG
To meet the credit needs of the mutual class, a thousand new regional
stock exchanges would abide new standards.

These will gather capital of all kinds for eco-development.
These would focus on technologies that lower the costs of living for
food, fuel, housing. Investment in them plants a
painless path from the tragedy economy toward profit in the mutual
economy.

The federal study "Local Economic Development Tools" concludes that
expansion of local firms through import replacement programs can
generate ten times more jobs than imported capital. 90% of
new jobs are created by local business.

Therefore businesses would be selected which rely on technologies
manageable by neighborhoods rather than centralized expertise, and
which reduce pollution

Businesses would be selected which transfer economic power to
community, rather than agencies which help the poor stay poor
They 'dbuild relevant skills.

They convert capital into harmless and beneficial efforts. It
provides basic benefits for all, and special benefits for
investors.

Transferable equity in community enterprises that provide secure
sources of food, fuel, and housing. Interest earned is
community interest, in order to provide investors with immediate
return-- food, health, housing, keys to city, gratitude, inheritance,
retirement security, in the form of negotiables, bonds, services,
goods.

At
the same time, a city that depends strictly on dollars
will not have enough money with which to employ everyone, pay fairly,
expand health clinics and transit, staff schools, repair water mains,
support businesses, and plant trees. So credits are
issued that boost
specific projects.

Thus investments may be made with capital other than dollars.
Regional bonds/notes redeemable for services and goods

It should be noted that regional currencies do not
replace dollars; they replace lack of dollars. They augment the local
money supply, raise the minimum wage, promote job creation, friendly
trade, local business. More productivity assures less
inflation.

Seats on the
Exchange would be elected by traders rather
than purchased or appointed. The directors regulate
transfers of
negotiables/bonds among the programs as services available

As
opportunity and invention increase through these investments, there is
more money available for producing goods and services that feed the
transition from dependence to strength. Local and regional
self-reliance give American communities added capability to reach to
each other, with ecological export industry and travel. Hundreds of
such programs give citizens genuine democratic
power-- in the marketplace-- where it counts.RICH AND POOR UNITE
What
about the poor? Conservatives send them to war or to
prison. Liberals
send them to counseling. Both responses require big
government. Both
are expensive. The nation's income gap hobbles all of us, by
requiring
higher taxes to control crime; to subsidize housing, heating and
electric; to fund Medicaid and Food Stamps.

The typical
large American city is built like a cash
register. The people inside are just spare change.
Some are dollar
bills; most are pennies; their only function is to fill the
till. But
this inequity hobbles market expansion. Research shows that
labor
productivity and yearly business growth are highest in countries where
income is most equal (Economist 11/5/94 p.21).

We can can reduce
the cost of living, and of government, by investing in neighborhoods
directly. Rather than merely servicing and controlling poor
neighborhoods, we gradually transfer economic power and land to them,
through genuinely nonprofit mutual aid systems.

Enormous new
markets open as the poor become creators of beautiful cities.
They
move BEYOND CHARITY TO OWNERSHIP when they provide land and money
according to this template.

As an experiment, let's convert one
block of houses from destitution to safety and full
employment. Here's
our budget: Calculate total cost to maintain one low-income city block:
subsidies for Food Stamps, electric and gas, Medicaid, teenage
pregnancy, neonatal congenital care, asthma and diabetes, family
counseling, disability, unemployment payments, police, courts, jail,
probation, remedial education. Calculate decreased costs also
for
street repair, street lighting and sewer maintenance. We
prove that
beauty and ecology are financially practical and culturally
acceptable. This neighborhood becomes school and
employer. As the
model succeeds, MetroEco Contractors spread these avoided costs
throughout the city.

o WORKER OWNERSHIP NETWORKS support transfer of business ownership to
employees.
o INSULATION CO-OPERATIVES buy and install energy-efficiencies.
o
MATERIALS RE-USE CENTERS disassemble and stockpile components of
discards, for resale and re-manufacturing. New buildings are
constructed ecologically, using non-rainforest woods.
order to help new small businesses form.

These also expand the economy by reducing waste of resources and
wealth.

New
Roles for Traditional Powers
Several related adjustments are therefore needed to
facilitate transitions:

o GOVERNMENT
power to shop locally and hire locals is a major green
engine. Government's ownership of vacant lands and
buildings gives
regulators great power to empower neighborhoods. City Hall
would amend
building codes to encourage greywater systems, compost toilets and
solar envelope zoning.

o SCHOOLS
would become exciting
again by teaching all students how to become powerful community
managers and creators of jobs, as well as active union and co-op
members, rather than obedient drones.

o MEDIA would use
their cultural power to inspire trust and enthusiasm for the future,
rather than fear and dread

MUTUAL CLASS JOBS
Rebuilding America so that we thrive during risky times will require
that we create 40,000,000 transitional jobs.

Mutual class jobs are generated by average people who work, who raise
children, and who depend on the health of neighborhoods.
These enable us to keep our homes and enjoyments while repairing
society and nature.

Regions make themselves powerful primarily by recycling their wealth,
to magnify it. That means jobs retaining talents, skills, and money of
local people in the community as much as possible, networking the
community to take care of itself to the maximum extent possible.

There's a high road for low tech.

Virtually everything used in a locality
can be made locally, by small energy-efficient shops that use regional
resources (including components of discards), and which control and
recycle all emissions and byproducts. Specialty materials shops (such
as foundries & sawmills) can be linked to each other and to
micro-industrial assembly shops.
ENERGY-EFFICIENCY: reflective roofs, green roofs,
solar hot water, photovoltaic electricity and streetlights,
superwindows, insulation, windmills, EnergyStar refrigerators (basement
preferred) and appliances, CF lightbulbs, basement retrofits for
occupancy and cold storage, mulching leaves onsite for gardens.
WATER EFFICIENCY: roof cisterns, drainage swales
to orchards/gardens, greywater, low-flow faucets, waterless toilets,
porous paving, street reclamation, depaving.
Even today, thousands of high-quality
household goods are produced locally for internal markets, such as
soaps, shoes, clothes, rugs, drapes, food, toys, and furniture.
Communities are busy providing food & food processing, compost,
garden tools, clothes, hats, gloves, shoes, wool & angora
goods, plant fibers, recycled fibers, lamps, tools, forges, herbal
medicines and healing. These are the basics.
As local production networks for micro
industries become more extensive, and as the increase in local wealth
enables more of us to afford locally-produced durables and household
goods, the unit price for local artisanry and manufacture gradually
becomes competitive with mass-produced imports.
Locally-made goods are already
competitively priced, when we calculate that buying local goods in
locally-owned stores produces local jobs that save money by reducing
unemployment's costs of social services, vandalism, drug use, violent
crime, and jail.

There are thousands more products for
which regional and national markets could be found, such as trolley
components & cargo bikes, insulation, transit, compost toilets,
cleaning supplies, scrap metal reprocessing. You name it; such products
can be made and exported without further contaminating our environment.

All skills can be adapted to green enterprise.

MICROLENDING
makes small loans at low interest, Microlending has proven the superior
safety of small loans to low-income people. MILITARY CONVERSIONS
retrofit vacated military bases or weapons factories for nonmilitary
jobs and production. REVOLVING
LOANFUNDS
make money available at zero- or low-interest for specified purposes
when prior loans are repaid. COMMUNITY SUPPORTEDAGRICULTURE brings
city folk to work on farms in exchange for fresh, low-cost
food. BUSINESS
INCUBATORS are buildings containing equipment shared by
small new businesses, to reduce start-up costs. BUY LOCAL CAMPAIGNS
promote social and economic benefits of shopping for locally-produced
goods, at locally-owned stores. CO-HOUSING provides
shared community spaces for child care, gardens, cooking and
recreation, to make life friendlier and easier. FARMERS' MARKETS
enable farmers and craftspeople to sell directly to local
people. FARMLAND
RETENTION groups advocate public policy that promotes and
protects local farming. FLEXIBLE
MANUFACTURING NETWORKS combine the skills and tools of
several local manufacturers to enable them jointly to get a
manufacturing contract. FOOD
AND FUEL CO-OPERATIVES coordinate bulk buying of food,
fuels, solar equipment and windmills by neighbors, to reduce unit coss
and gain policy leverage. HOUSING
CO-OPERATIVES remove housing from the speculative market,
enabling occupants to resell with specified limits to profit.
IMPORT REPLACEMENT
PROGRAMS connect regional businesses and individuals to
supply each other, rather than depending on imports. LAND TRUSTS purchase
local land to protect it, usually from suburbanization as a base for
affordable housing. LOCAL
INSURANCE COMPANIES (locally-owned nonprofit insurers
which invest all premiums regionally). including
locally-controlled non-profit health financing co-ops. LOCAL PENSION FUNDS
are locally-originated and controlled, much of whose capital is
dedicated to local investment. LOCAL TAX CREDITS
reduce local fees on organic farms, solar and wind energy, realizing
that tax reductions will be returned via high sales tax revenues.

CONCLUSION:
What is to be fun?
So imagine that, 30 years from now, America's new markets enable
everyone to work a few hours creatively daily, then relax with family
and friends to enjoy top-quality local healthy food. To enjoy clean
low-cost warm housing, clean and safe transport, high-quality
handcrafted clothes and household goods. To enjoy creating and playing
together, growing up and growing old in supportive neighborhoods where
everyone is valuable. And to do this while replenishing rather than
depleting the planet.

Let's look at a sample Mutual Day. We start with sex and
music, then breakfast. We walk or bike to work, four days per
week. After three hours work, we return home for a long lunch
and sex, or we eat with co-workers: we discuss work plans, utility and
durability of product, marketing, sales, prices and wages.
Then two more hours of work. We have time and energy for an
afternoon stroll or game, then prepare dinner, make music, make love
(Why so much sex? Because we're relaxed). We finish
with an evening stroll in our beautiful neighborhood.

Looking even further ahead, towards the grandparenthood of your
youngest living descendants, there will be little oil but we will be
warm. There will be few cars but we will go faster to places
more delightful. The most secure housing will be built
substantially underground. Cities will grow much of their own
food.

The next America will look entirely different than the one we
know. We'll have fun building it and our great-grandchildren
will thank us. America went to the moon. Now
America will go to the future.

Glover is a Boomer
and founder of 18 organizations and campaigns, including Ithaca HOURS
local currency, Citizen Planners of Los Angeles, Philadelphia Orchard
Project, Health Democracy, Patch Adams Free Clinic. He is
author of six books on grassroots economies, and a former professor of
urban studies at Temple University. paulglover.org
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